Sebi relies on SC’s Sahara order to nail fraudsters in R1,500-cr ‘StockGuru’ case

SummaryReferring to Supreme Court’s order against the Sahara Group as a benchmark for cases of unauthorised raising of money from public, Sebi has barred seven persons and one company from the markets for ten years for their involvement in the estimated R1,500-crore ‘StockGuru’ fraud.

in Sahara case, that the power to administer proceedings in cases of public issue of shares or debentures lies with Sebi.

Sebi’s investigations found that SGI had invited investors to subscribe to its convertible preference shares through its office in Delhi, its agents and representatives, associate concern ‘stockguru.india’ and its website.

Sebi said that “these securities were of face value R10 each and were offered and subscribed at an exorbitant premium of R1,500 per share”. However, the promised dividend of 18% was found to be on face value of R10 and not on exact per share price of R1,510.

“In other words, subscribers were promised dividend of R1.80 on investment of R1,510 (which translates into 0.119% real dividend). Further, there was no reference of redemption premium to be paid to the subscribers,” Sebi said. “There was no economic justification of payment of so high premium with minuscule dividend...”it added.